Scott Turow to address 2013 IIT Chicago-Kent graduates on May 19

May 2, 2013

Attorney and author Scott Turow will deliver the keynote address at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law's 2013 Commencement on Sunday, May 19, at 2:30 p.m. at the UIC Forum, 725 West Roosevelt Road, in Chicago.

Scott Turow is a partner in the Chicago office of the international law firm SNR Denton (formerly Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal), where he has specialized in white-collar criminal litigation since 1986, while also devoting a substantial amount of time to pro bono matters. Turow is also a best-selling author whose work has been translated into more than 25 languages and sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. Since 2010, he has served as president of the Author's Guild, the nation's largest membership organization of professional writers. (He was previously Author's Guild president from 1997 to 1998.)

Turow graduated with high honors with a degree in English from Amherst College and earned a master's degree from Stanford University's Creative Writing Program. He graduated with honors from Harvard Law School.

Prior to going into private practice, Turow was as an assistant United States attorney in Chicago and served as lead prosecutor in a number of trials related to corruption in the legal profession connected to "Operation Greylord," a federal investigation of corruption into the Illinois judiciary.

Turow is the author of eight books. Six are legal thrillers set in fictional Kindle County, Illinois. His two nonfiction works include the perennial bestseller One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School and Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer's Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty. Turow also has edited two volumes of mystery fiction. His forthcoming book, Identical, is scheduled for release in October 2013, and is also set in Kindle County.

Turow served as the first chair of Illinois' Executive Ethics Commission, and was appointed by former Illinois Governor George Ryan to the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment, whose recommendations led to substantial reforms of the Illinois death penalty. Turow has been active in a number of charitable causes including organizations that promote literacy, education and legal rights. He is also an Amherst College trustee.

Founded in 1888, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law is celebrating "125 years of distinctive legal education." IIT Chicago-Kent is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, a private, Ph.D.-granting institution with programs in engineering, psychology, architecture, business, design and law.